2013 Workforce Planning & Analytics Conference Closing Keynote: Bill Rasmussen, Founder of ESPN

When ESPN was in its infancy, the established networks called it “television suicide” to devote an entire network to sports 24 hours a day. Today, SportsCenter has logged over 50,000 episodes on a network available in over 100 million households in the U.S.  For the final keynote session of the 2013 Workforce Planning & Analytics Conference, we were treated to the entrepreneurial wisdom of Bill Rasmussen, Founder of ESPN and author of the book Sports Junkies Rejoice.

Rasmussen shared the story of ESPN’s impressive growth from 1979 to the present and some of the key reasons for its continued success.

Rasmussen’s three pillars of entrepreneurial thinking:

• “I have an idea”
• “If I want to provide for my future, I need to create it”
• “I love complacency among competitors”

Dedicated People:

From the beginning, ESPN’s mission has not deviated from this simple idea: “Serve Fans Anytime, Anywhere”.  Of the approximately 80 employees ESPN had in 1979, 40 of them were still there 30 years later, talk about employee retention!

“We didn’t advertise in trade magazines that we were hiring in the beginning” said Rasmussen. Instead, by building buzz around the idea of a 24 hour sports network they had 2500 applicants for a job there. Most of them were young people with little experience but a few had the passion and natural talent to get hired.

We hope you enjoyed the conference, we’ll see you next year!